Past Tense
by Readergirl37
Summary: Elena used to love Stefan. She loved him with everything she had. Used to. Set sometime in s3, slight Elejah.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just had some feelings and this came out.

"Are you sure?" Elijah asks as he parks in the driveway.

"I'm sure about all of it. This won't take too long, I just don't think I can drive right now and after I talk to Stefan, we need to talk too." The unspoken knowledge that he'll protect her if Stefan does anything comforts her a little. She gives him a fragile glass smile before she opens the door and gets out of the car. He watches her take a deep breath and walk to the front door of the Boarding House, ring the doorbell and wait.

She almost feels a little unsure of herself when she can't see Elijah anymore.

* * *

"What is it, Elena?" Stefan asks as he lets her in.

"Is Damon home?" She evades the question for a moment. Stefan shakes his head.

"He's not, is this about him?" He inquires, and it _almost_ sounds like he cares. But Stefan doesn't care about anyone or anything anymore, especially not Elena.

"No. This is about us." She says simply and she almost thinks there's a flicker of recognition in those once familiar eyes.

"What about us?" Stefan says carefully. She wonders if it hurts him to look at her, because he barely seems to. She wonders, not for the first time, if it's because she looks like Katherine. Perhaps he doesn't look at her for very long is because things between them are wrecked beyond repair and they both messed up. She does know that it's not because he doesn't have his emotions, because he does.

"I loved you." She says and sighs. One word out of her sentence catches his attention.

"Loved?" He asks. He thought she'd wait just a little longer. He wonders why Elijah's in his driveway waiting for her.

"It's the past tense of love Stefan, but I'm sure you know that. I loved you. I don't anymore. At least-" She takes another sigh because she can't help it.

"Not like I used to. Not in a romantic way." It's so hard to look at him. When she looks at him she _remembers_ , she remembers how easy it used to be and how it shifted. She found out he was a vampire but came to terms with it, and they were broken pieces completing a puzzle and they acted like reckless teenagers but they weren't. It was good until it wasn't and he traded himself for Damon.

* * *

She begins to explain that. It's not that he traded himself to save Damon, she'd save Jeremy in a heartbeat, she understands that, anyone with siblings would. It's that she tried to find him for months and then he followed Klaus. It's the fact he ignored her and she had to silently suffer as her heart hurt, everything hurt. It's the fact he looked at her with cold, dismissive eyes when he knew she still loved him and said nothing. It's the fact she tried to contact him while he was gone, everything she could think of.

It's the fact that even after he got his emotions back, he still looked at her like he didn't have any emotions at all. She doesn't blame him for anything during his emotionless period really, she just wants to reminded him that it had hurt. He chose revenge over her and all she wanted was for him to respond. She just wanted a response, even just "hi" would have made her heart feel better. She loved him for months and months and realized he didn't love her anymore, not really. If he did love her, if he still does, it's too late. She waited for so long. She waited for so long that she lost part of herself trying to find him and it was exhausting.

Losing him was depressing, it was all depressing and it's barely okay, but she can't stay the girl he was in love with forever. She needs to move on or she might not ever move on and that's just even more pain. Part of her knows that she's hurting him with some of her words and part of her wants him to hurt. She wants a reaction because she lost her shit and cried so hard she thought she was dying and isolated herself so many times while he was gone and he doesn't look like he cares.

* * *

She tells him that in the beginning, she wrote her name with his in one of her notebooks and imagined marrying him and walking down the aisle, growing old with him. She imagined a thousand different scenarios with a smile on her face, she just wanted to be with him. She wanted almost anything and everything with him.

She would have followed him anywhere, done almost anything for him, it took over everything she had and she left it. When the love died, it felt like her body died, it had taken up so much of her she wondered if there was any part of her left untouched or left.

She used to smile and be so happy just at the thought of him, sometimes he didn't even need to be close to make her happy. She can't remember if she loved him or if she was in love with him. Part of her wonders if she just stuck with him because she felt like she needed to. She doesn't know, she admits.

* * *

There's a lot she doesn't know. She doesn't know if he really loved her because she's Elena Gilbert or if he loved her because he could kiss her and pretend she was Katherine. She doesn't know why she did some of the things she did or why he did how he did. She doesn't know how deep their love went and she really doesn't know about any of the what ifs. The what if's almost drove her crazy.

She thought that if she loved someone, she shouldn't give up on them. So she held on when she could have let go, because she thought that was what she was supposed to do, what was right.

Elena tells him that she tried hard to hold onto him. He disappeared into thin air with the man who killed her and left disfigured corpses in his wake. She tells him that it was hard to face the realization that he wasn't going to wake up one morning and come back, or love her. It started to hurt and the love that had filled her with energy and hope started to rot. It hurt her and it was her fault because she held on when she should have let go.

Stefan opens his mouth at some points but she just keeps talking.

"I can't keep waiting for you to think that you might love me again, and I need to move on with my life, and I'm telling you this because I want you to know how I feel." There are tears in her eyes but she can't tell if it's over Stefan, their dead relationship, or something in her eyes.

* * *

"And using Elijah as your rebound is a good idea?" He asks. She closes her eyes for a moment. Of course his first words are harsh, the Stefan she loved is gone, even though he has his emotions again.

"He's not a rebound. Elijah could never be a rebound, he wouldn't let himself be a rebound anyway. I'm not cheating on you and I certainly haven't just started to move on. You and I have been over for a very long time, Stefan. I wish you nothing but the best." She says, and she glances at his still face one more time.

It's not a goodbye, Mystic Falls is only so big after all, but it's the closure she needs before she can try to start anything serious with Elijah.

She opens the door and walks out, the door a few seconds behind her.

"I wish you nothing but the best too." He murmurs into the empty room.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Elijah asks.

"I will be. I love you. Present tense." She says and something pulls at his lips.

"I love you too." He says as he drives farther away from the Boarding House.


End file.
